Young adult novels can still be good stories for adults to read — either to reminisce about the past or to just enjoy. And since “Vintage Veronica” by Erica S. Perl is essentially a workplace drama, the book is relatable to any adult, young or old.

Veronica is a 15-year-old who has a summer job at her favorite clothing store, Clothing Bonanza, a vintage shop in the consignment section. With her ‘50s sense of style, her co-workers and boss think she’s a college student, and Veronica has never bothered to correct them. In fact, she’s barely talked to her co-workers at all except for Bill, who is a bit of a stoner. The co-workers she’s been watching the most are the ‘cool’ girls on the floor, Zoe and Ginger, with their Goth and ‘60s mod sense of styles.

When Zoe and Ginger take notice of Veronica, they decide they want her to spy on the ‘weird’ Len, who works odd jobs around the store and is super quiet. Zoe and Ginger claim Len is stealing and has some sort of ring going on with Veronica’s boss and when Veronica sees Len take a pair of vintage pajamas, she follows him home and confronts him.

It turns out Len isn’t at all what she thought, and is actually a quiet, nice guy who has a lot of reptile pets. Veronica begins to see something in Len, but hides her romantic feelings in front of her ‘friends.’ While Veronica is lying to Len by possibly being his girlfriend and then turning around and denying it to Zoe and Ginger, is Len also lying to her? And can their relationship become something real, or will Veronica continue to act differently in front of different people?

This is a story about coming into your own and figuring out who you really are and the people you really want to be with. That’s a good message at any age. The problem I had with the story was Veronica mentions always being a ‘fat’ girl and that made her distrust people who want to be her friend because they’re probably just gearing up to make fun of her, yet she immediately goes along with Zoe and Ginger. 

The two are obviously mean girls to the reader, so why she would choose to trust them seems strange. Veronica does figure this out fairly quickly, though, and then seems more scared they will turn on her than trusting them.